


gathered into one

by elumish



Series: the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Asexual John Sheppard, Gen, Sentient Atlantis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 11:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11599695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish
Summary: The thing is that John has a city for a Guide.





	gathered into one

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [new destructions in the sky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6918043) by [elumish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish). 



> This is the first in the series of (for the most part) unrelated one-shots set in the same world as new destructions in the sky.

The thing is that John has a city for a Guide.

That’s not the right place to start.

The thing is that, before John stepped foot through the Stargate onto Atlantis, he had never known quiet. There is no such thing as quiet for a Sentinel, particularly not a five-sense Sentinel. Even grayouts aren’t really silent, just—wrong, and he virtually never loses hearing anyway. But when his foot touches Atlantis’s gateroom, for a moment everything drops away, and there is genuine silence.

He thinks, when he has time to think about it, when he lays in bed thinking of Colonel Sumner’s face, old and wrong, that the resonance of Atlantis acts as destructive interference to all other sound waves, to his brain. He wonders if this is a product of the ATA gene. He doesn’t ask.

Around him, Atlantis hums.

He doesn’t realize that Atlantis is his Guide for over a year. Not until he steps back through the Stargate into the SGC and immediately goes completely blind. He’d have thought he’d have noticed before, but the puddlejumpers are part of Atlantis, and so is every other piece of ATA tech, and so taking them was like scent-marking before separation, and he was fine.

But then he’s in the SGC and blind as a bat, navigating by sound that’s too loud and the agonizing press of Elizabeth Weir’s hand on his arm. And he has been through torture, and he doesn’t tell anyone he is blind, just breathes through exercise after exercise that he learned because the military doesn’t want their unbonded Sentinels losing their shit in a warzone, and midway through a debrief with General O’Neill his sight snaps back into existence for him to see General O’Neill give him a small smile and ask, “You back with us, Major?”

John gives him the most confused frown he can muster, asking, “Sir?”

“Sight goes first for me, too, or I wouldn’t have noticed. Will giving you a piece of Ancient tech help, or will it screw up all your shields?”

John hesitates, the habit of silence nearly too strong to break, then asks, “Do you have anything from Atlantis, sir?”

General O’Neill’s head cocks to the side, and then he smiles. “I think your people brought through an extra paperweight. I’ll make sure it gets to you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

General O’Neill nods. “Now, about that bug.”

\--

The city starts talking to him after he gets back. He thinks it’s because he’s finally realized what it is to him, though it may also be because the city finally figured out how to calibrate to his brain. He wonders how many Ancients it Guided.

He thinks, for the first time in his life, that he’s jealous, thinking of previous partners.

It’s an entertaining thought, once he gets through the hot prickle in his chest. The Ancients are dead or ascended. Atlantis is his now. He’s jealous of literal ghosts.

At first, from Atlantis, it’s just purring hums, like a happy sated kitten making its home in his head, just behind his right ear. Then it moves on to ideas—technical statistics, mainly, ZPM power and drone numbers and tensile strength of puddlejumper exteriors. He realizes he’s taken to running his hands along the walls, petting them like they’re an extension of the kitten living in his brain. He thinks he should mind, but he doesn’t.

He’s known he was a Sentinel since he was twelve, since the car crash, had wanted a Guide for years. Wanted the idea of a Guide, of the quiet, of the peace. But the few tries he had had had always felt like they were missing something, and though sexual components to the bonds are technically unnecessary, all of the Guides he had tried had wanted that, and that wasn’t going to happen.

A city, though—he won’t be expected to fuck a city, or be fucked by one, and when he’s tired enough that purring hum hits pleasure spots in his brain that he hadn’t really realized existed. It’s not sexual, or not like any sex he’s ever had; it’s just pleasure, like flying and sunlight and math.

He’s landing a broken Atlantis when she first speaks to him, and it’s in Ancient, but also English, and she says _thank you_ and then again _thank you_ and then they land and she says _tua dormata you sleep you must sleep John Sheppard you are tired you are hurt I do not like you hurt you sleep_ and he disengages the chair and pats its arms and says, aloud, “I’ll sleep when I’m done.”

She makes a noise like an irritated parent, then says again, _you sleep you are tired go to sleep John._

John is tired, so unbelievably fucking tired, but he has a city to run—and to fix—so he says, “I’ll sleep once I have you patched up. You’re mine, too, remember?”

\--

Apparently Atlantis figures out long-range beaming for him, and she doesn’t even do it while he’s there. It’s flattering, he thinks, if a bit irritating that she waited until he was off-world—or on-world, but Earth-land-proper doesn’t feel like home, not really, more like one extended mission where he just happens to be more familiar than usual with the local customs.

He’s not sure he likes the kid, is sure he’s scared of him. The only other Guide John has ever encountered that’s that strong is Atlantis. And that, that is not a thought he wants to entertain, that this scrawny teenager with a case of PTSD if John has ever seen one is as strong as the greatest city in the universe, a city built by the Ancients.

But the kid gets past every one of his defenses with just a glancing touch, and maybe he wouldn’t have been able to do that if John was on Atlantis, if he had the shields of his own Guide, but he did, and John is fucking scared.

It works out in the end, because of Jack O’Neill the mini of all people, but John is genuinely concerned he’s going to have to shoot the kid, and genuinely concerned he’s not going to be able to. To intentionally put a bullet in a Guide—

He sits on a balcony that only he knows about, back in Atlantis, and pets one of her walls, and lets her hum in his head and tell him about the material used to keep her from corroding even after all those years.

He doesn’t think he could ever explain those technical details to Rodney, should Rodney ever ask, or anyone else. They’re not words, precisely, and they’re not in math that they use on Earth. They’re _ideas_ , ideas with form and substance but without the grounding necessary to put them in English or even in Ancient. It would be frustrating, but it’s _not_ , because Atlantis is his, and this is theirs, and if it’s ever something Rodney needs to know, Atlantis will get that information to him.

\--

They go back to the Pegasus Galaxy sixteen months after they leave it, and once they land John feels something inside of him ease. Atlantis prefers Pegasus.

There are few things John wouldn’t do to make his Guide happy.


End file.
